10/21/15

John Harper| NY Daily News- For two days Joe Maddon had said all he wanted for Game 3 was warmer weather, as if that would unleash the Cubs’ sluggers, and by Tuesday you could tell that Terry Collins was tired of hearing it. “I know they’re back in their park and it’s warmer and that’s conducive to their lineup," Collins said. “But we have power too. You look at our power numbers from August on, and we’re dangerous. So I think this park is going to help us as much as it helps them." Then the Mets went out and backed him up on that. Jacob deGrom delivered again and the Mets banged the ball around the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field for 11 hits, including — what else? — another Daniel Murphy home run.(Chris Soto: Good Pitching will beat good hitting 8 times out of 10 and right now the Cubs are just being flat out dominated by the Mets young hard throwing rotation. deGrom once again did not have command of his fastball....but just like Game 5 of the NLDS, he used his change-up and breaking pitches more frequently to keep hitters off balance and gutted his way through 7 IP. It also helps when Daniel Murphy is so hot that staring into his eyes causes third degree burns. He became only the 2nd player in MLB history to hit HRs in 5 straight postseason games, tying Carlos Beltran for the all-time record.)

Michael Baron| Just Mets- By all accounts, the Cubs came into the National League Championship Series with a young, energetic, balanced and high-octane offense. But they’re not perfect by any means. According to research performed at ESPN, the Cubs were last in the league at hitting fastballs over 94 mph with a .229 average. Matt Harvey (96 mph), Jacob deGrom (95.5 mph) and Noah Syndergaard (97.7 mph) are in the top five in pitches thrown over 94 mph. Jeurys Familia’s average velocity on his fastball was 96 mph, his splitter 94 mph. The Mets as a team threw the most pitches over 95 mph in baseball during the regular year in 2015, and it’s not even close.(Chris Soto: This same stat was mentioned a few months ago when we were evaluating why Bryce Harper was struggling so badly against Matt Harvey. Fastballs in the upper 90's, WITH MOVEMENT, that can placed on the corners are darn near impossible to hit. The Cubs were the highest Strikeout team in baseball this season and unfortunately for them....they ran into the highest K rate SP rotation in baseball. This was a matchup that always favored the Mets....they just needed to score enough runs to win the games....and they certainly have done that.)

Jon Heyman | CBS Sports- Is this Sandy Alderson's Mets team? Well, surely it is. But is it also Omar Minaya's team? There's been some debate lately as to whether Alderson, the Mets current general manager, or his predecessor Omar Minaya, deserves the bulk of the credit for this Mets team that's [one] game from the World Series. Minaya was a much better general manager than most understood at the time, and an extraordinary procurer of talent. Alderson, of course, made some excellent trades, and formed a very fine team that's playing its best baseball when it most counts, so he and his guys deserve serious kudos. Alderson and Minaya actually make a perfect tag team, and together they acquired all but one of the key players on an excellent team that may be a juggernaut for the foreseeable future.(Chris Soto: When Alderson inherited the team from Minaya in 09, The minor league wasn't entirely barren, but there was a significant talent disparity between the upper minors and the lower minors. It took a few years but the talented guys Minaya left behind did eventually make their way to the MLB. To make an analogy, Minaya sort of provided the edges the puzzle. Providing Sandy with Harvey, Matz, Murphy, and the Latin guys in Lagares, Flores, and Familia. However, it was the Alderson regime that made the team whole. Adding the middle pieces such as deGrom's development, trading Dickey for Syndergaard and d'Arnaud, trading for Cespedes, Clippard, Johnson, Uribe, and Reed, along with signing Grandy and Cuddyer. I certainly won't give Alderson ALL the credit....but in my opinion....he deserves about 80% of it.)

Well for many obvious reasons I want Mets to close it out tonight and bluejays to extend their series..........Mets huge advantage this postseason has been ability to start 4 above average arms.......but even though its produced all playoffs I'd still like a bullpen arm like Familia to get extra rest in addition to those scheduled days off.If Mets win tonight and get extra rest I'd predict Familia will be 100% available for every world series game and pitch more than one inning whenever as needed.

The ivy rule has been in effect since day one... if you have a runner on first and he crosses home, gets on a bus, and goes to Cincinnati, he still have to go back to third if the ball gets lost in the ivy.

Gentlemen,Good morning, and a good morning it is. All I can say is that the team has been just great. That said, you haven't won anything in a best of 7 until you get the 4th win. They need to keep their foot on the pedal, and hopefully Mr. Matz will gain some command back on regular rest.

But whatever happens, they've made us all giddy with success. Watching this team gel together and gather more and more momentum until currently they are steamrolling through the playoffs. it just keeps getting better and better. The most amazing thing is, they have during the playoffs looked like the more confident team, the team that gets those little things done that you need to win.

Omar and his scouts deserve credit for the talent, but every team has talent, it's about how you incorporate that talent into a winning ball club. Lets remember his tenure as Mets GM. A lot of our top guys now who were young prospects then would have been traded long ago for veterans or rentals. He's a good talent evaluator, but Sandy had to deal with NO MONEY (low payroll), waiting years for talent to be developed, and NY pressure from fans and media. What he's done is remarkable and he should be commended.

I recall seeing a game where the batter hit a ground rule double with a runner on first, by the time the ball hit over the fence the runner was nearly home, the umpires made a judgment call and counted the run, now that's been years ago, has the rule changed

Good point, Clyde, I seem to remember a similar scenario once where a baserunner was allowed to score on a ground rule double. This ball unlike virtually all ground rule doubles stayed in the park. In that situation, i think the ump should have discretion to allow a guy to score last night when evidence is overwhelming in that regard. If Cespedes hit that ball, he'd have gone inside the park HR.

When Alderson took over, he had barely anything to work with. Minaya built a competitive club through free agency and was able to lay the foundation for what we're seeing now in the long term (from his perspective at the time) but he failed miserably in worrying about bridging between the two.

Sure, Omar had always been praised for his scouting and has an eye for talent. However, he was a terrible GM because he couldn't properly value that talent, either in trades or in contracts. We also don't know who of the current roster would actually be here if Omar was GM - instead of dealing Beltran and Dickey for prospects, Omar could've easily done the opposite and dealt some of his younger talent for more established major leaguers.

I give him about as much credit as I'd give any scout from the previous regime. This is Sandy's team. He patiently waited on the development and made shrewd trades.

I don't think we would've seen Sandy handing out ridiculously bad Castillo and Perez contracts like Omar. He'd probably have signed Peralta and traded for Upton, but that's the only difference I see. Sandy brought in DePo and Ricciardi specifically to help the team build a young pipeline. Sandy has a discipline that Omar never did.

The home team determines the ground rules for their own park. MLB has nothing to do with it. So MLB can't change them. The reason for that is simple. Every ballpark is unique (even when they were doing cookie cutter ballparks, they were unique) and baseball can't set rules across the board for the unique feature of one park. Don't expect the ivy rule to ever change and, so long as it is applied to both teams, the Cubs will have games where it hurts them too.

As for whose team this is....it is ours. Let's enjoy it and save the argument for another day.

7.05Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance --...(f) Two bases, if a fair ball bounces or is deflected into the stands outside the first or third base foul lines; or if it goes through or under a field fence, or through or under a scoreboard, or through or under shrubbery or vines on the fence; or if it sticks in such fence, scoreboard, shrubbery or vines;

Except, Hobie, if a ball bounces over the fence, whatever, the umpire has the discretion to rule that the runner would have scored anyway and allow the run. I've seen them do it numerous times. There's no umpire discretion at Wrigley. Ball goes into the ivy, you get two bases. Period.